An Alternate Journey 02: Voyager Tales
by chrisfardell
Summary: As Voyager continues on its journey to the Alpha Quadrant (via a diversion) and the two new crew members (who arrived in 'Time of Mystery') settle in, the crew find themselves in many new and different situations...


**Star Trek: Voyager**

**An Alternate Journey 02: **_**Voyager **_**Tales**

**Chapter 1: Howarth**

**14 July 2374**

"_Personal Log: 14 July 2374._

_It has been several days since Kathleen and I joined _Voyager's_ crew on their now extended journey across the galaxy to their homes in the United Federation of Planets. We have been settling in. Today we will be taking Pre-WWIII 21__st__ Century history. The Helmsman, Tom Paris, is teaching. I will also be in Astrometrics where Seven will assign me to her data analysis team. End Log._"

Daniel Howarth clicked off the PADD, saving the log entry to its memory and to the computer in the quarters. The door chime rang.

"Enter," he said.

The door opened. "Hi, Daniel," Ensign Katelyn Hawkins said.

"What brings you here, Katelyn?" Daniel asked.

"Please, call me Kate. I just thought that I would visit my new neighbour."

"Oh! You can come in but I have a history lesson in fifteen minutes," Daniel said. He didn't want to be late.

"Of course," Kate said as she entered. "You haven't done much with the place," she said as she gestured to the empty walls.

"I haven't had much time to unpack, and I didn't bring all that much with me when Kathleen and I attempted to follow the invaders to their homeworld."

Kate was taken aback. "Of course," she said "Sorry," she said.

"No need to be apologetic," Daniel said sincerely.

Kate looked up and smiled.

"So, what do you want to talk about?" he asked.

"So, what were you studying before the invasion?" Kate asked.

_ ~1~_

Ten minutes later, Daniel entered the Forward Lounge on Deck 8, where Paris had decided to hold the informal history lessons.

"So, where were we up to last time?" Paris asked.

"I believe it was the terrorist attacks that destroyed the World Trade Centre in New York," Kathleen said.

"Ah, yes. 9/11. This was an event that defined most of American international policy for the first decades of the twenty first century..." Paris began.

_~2~_

After an hour and a half Kathleen and Daniel left the Forward Lounge. "Very interesting," Daniel said.

"Of course," Kathleen said.

"Pardon?"

"Clarify."

"That the US would occupy Iraq for that long," Daniel said.

"Definitely," Kathleen said.

"So, what are you up to now?" Daniel asked.

"I'm joining Seven in Astrometrics. She's going to teaching me about subspace and how it interacts with stars in normal space," Kathleen said.

"Sounds complicated," Daniel said with a wince.

"I know, but I'm certain that I can handle it," Kathleen said with a little snark.

"I know that you can," Daniel said, quietly.

"Good, so what do you have planned?"

"I have an hour of holodeck time. I'm going to continue with the tutorial program I started using yesterday."

"So you can create your own program from scratch? It's probably beyond our comprehension at the moment, Daniel!"

"Not at all, Kathleen; the top level programming language is close to plain English," Daniel said.

"It's hiding a very complex system, though," Kathleen said.

"There is," Daniel said.

"What about one of those 'holo-novels?' They may be easier than trying to create your own program."

"I'll try one of those too."

_ ~3~_

Tom Paris stepped off the turbolift onto the Bridge. "The Captain wants to see you in her ready room, Tom," Commander Chakotay said.

"Any reason?" Tom asked with curiosity.

"It's probably something to do with your students," Chakotay said.

"I see," Tom said as he headed in the direction of the ready room.

_ ~4~_

The door chime rang in the Captain's Ready Room. "Enter," Captain Kathryn Janeway said.

Tom entered. "You wished to see me, Captain?"

"Yes, I'm curious as to how your students are handling the lessons and how they are settling into life on _Voyager_."

"They are very easy to teach, Captain. They enjoy learning."

The Captain smiled. "That reminds me of myself at that age. I wanted to know everything. Of course, Starfleet Academy was a great institution, but it didn't have everything that I wanted to learn."

"It wouldn't," Tom said.

"But that didn't stop me from learning what I wanted."

"So, you did some exchange courses?" Tom asked.

"More than one, through Cambridge, those were great semesters," Janeway said in remembrance.

"I can only imagine. Myself, well, I was there for the flying."

Janeway looked at Tom. "That would explain a lot."

"I didn't say that I don't regret my Academy days, Captain," Tom said with a penitent look on his face.

Janeway refocused on the original intent of her asking Tom in at this point in time. "So, You think they are settling in?"

"Kathleen is, but I'm not sure about Daniel. He tends to keep more to himself."

"Oh?"

"Then again, Katelyn seems to have taken an interest in him."

"Katelyn?"Janeway asked, unsure of which of her crew that Paris was referring to.

"Ensign Hawkins."

"Oh, of course."

"They've been talking a lot," Paris said.

"Then he has made a friend."

_ ~5~_

Kate Hawkins approached Holodeck 2, where the computer had told her that Daniel Howarth was.

"_Program active_,_ you wish to enter?_" the Computer said.

"Yes."

"_You wish to be assigned a character_?"

"No, create character," Kate said, having read what the program was on the screen.

"_Character parameters set_," the computer said as the Holodeck door opened.

_~6~_

Kate entered the holodeck, into a large entrance hall with curved walls. The door closed. She looked back and saw a round door. She started walking further into the smial, for smial it was. 'Very curious,' she thought.

She followed the curve of the corridor around the interior of the hill and found Daniel in the library."_Lord of the Rings_, huh?" she asked.

"Yes. I thought it would be a good idea to try to experience parts of the story. An hour at a time. This is from the very beginning, _An Expected Party_. Apparently Bilbo is resting as the story begins."

"Oh?"

"'I've just spent the last half hour exploring Bag End. It's amazing what 400 years of speculation can do."

"What do you mean?"

'

"It's not just the computer generating a holographic environment based on what Tolkien wrote. If it was, there wouldn't be all the details that I have found," Daniel said.

"I'll give you that."

"There must have been a great many adaptations."

"Of course," Kate said.

"I guess that there were some movies first?"

"Yes, in the early 2000s, a New Zealand filmmaker made a trilogy, followed by another trilogy based on _The Hobbit_ a decade later. The architectural styles of this version of Bag End mostly come from those films."

"Cool, but I guess there were other adaptations later?" Daniel asked.

"Of course, but you can just look it up the computer," Kate said.

"Of course," Daniel said. "Computer, create scroll with list of adaptations."

The computer gave the acknowledgement signal and the scroll appeared on the desk. Daniel opened it.

"Ah, yes. _Lord of the Rings_ film trilogy, 2001 – 2003, various video game adaptations of the film trilogy, _The Hobbit_ film trilogy, 2012 - 2014..."

"And that's just the beginning," Kate said.

"Yes, I see a comic book adaptation in the late 2010s, with an animated series in the early 2020's," Daniel said as he continued to read from the scroll.

"So, you want to go out and look at Hobbiton?"

"Not at the moment, plenty of time for that later," Daniel said.

"Are you sure?

"Yes."

_~7~_

An hour later, Kathleen was having a late lunch in the Mess Hall, when a member of the crew came up to her. "You're one of the new people right?" she asked.

"Excuse me?" Kathleen asked.

"You came through that wormhole?"

"Yes, I'm Kathleen Collins, who are you?"

"I'm Janella Lambert. I would like to talk to you about what happened on Earth when you left."

'Why does she want to know,' Kathleen wondered. "Right... What do you want to know?" she asked warily.

"What was happening, there are very little records of an extraterrestrial invasion in Australia at that time."

"I guess that the information was stored somewhere where it was subsequently lost from, or Starfleet feels that an average crewmember on _Voyager_ didn't need to know?" Kathleen mused.

"Possibly," Janella said, as she appeared to be in thought.

"Anything else?" Kathleen asked with a slight edge to her voice.

"Nothing else at this time, I was just curious," Janella said. "I'll talk more later," she said as she left.

'That's weird," Kathleen thought. She didn't know what to make of the conversation that she had just had.

_~8~_

Daniel and Kate entered the Mess Hall for lunch. "So you think that Crewman Lambert is up to something?" Kate asked, after Kathleen had told them what had just transpired.

"Possibly," Kathleen said. She shook her head "I'm not sure what her intentions are," she said.

"She has been a loner these past few years. Not even hanging out with her fellow Maquis," Kate said.

"We should keep an eye on her," Daniel said.

"Possibly," Kate said. 'She may not like that,' she thought.

"Or report her behaviour to Commander Chakotay," Kathleen said.

"He would say that it's not much to go on," Kate said.

"If it happens again, I may think about going to Chakotay, or Tuvok," Kathleen said,

"Talk to us first though?" Kateasked.

"Sure," Kathleen said. She walked up to the servery.

_~9~_

Once in her quarters, Janella picked up a PADD and accessed the recording function. "I have approached one of the two who arrived through that wormhole..."

After lunch Daniel had a 4 hour shift in Astrometrics.He was learning how to operate the data analysis software rather quickly. Seven had said that he was ready for more duties...

Two hours into his shift he noticed something on the long range scans. "You have something to report, ?" Seven asked.

"Yes, Seven, the sensors are picking up the outer edges of the large nebula in our path about 111 light years ahead."

"I see," Seven said.

"Yes, but we may need to go around it," Daniel said.

"I'm aware of the radiation readings, ," Seven said.

"Still, don't you think that we should inform Captain Janeway?"

Seven thought for a moment. "Agreed."

_~10~_

The senior officers had met in the Observation Lounge. "This is the nebula in our path," Seven said, indicating the image of the nebula displayed on the screen. "The radiation levels are too high for us to pass through it."

"So you're saying that we have to change course again?"Janeway asked.

"Correct, according to my calculations it will not add any more than eightmonths to our journey, if we change course now," Seven said.

"I see," Janeway said.

"If we don't change course until later, it will take longer to go around it," Seven said.

"Noted Seven," Janeway said.

"I see no objections," Paris said.

"Given that we are already off course to the Federation, I suppose it won't hurt to take an additional diversion!" Lieutenant B'Elanna Torres said with heavy sarcasm.

"Lieutenant!"Janeway warned.

"Sorry, Captain, but why can't we just go through it?"B'Elanna said.

"It's too risky. Most of the crew would have to be placed in stasis. We don't know how thick it is," Seven said.

"We would know when we get closer, correct?" B'Elanna asked.

"Correct, but it's best to change course now," Seven said.

B'Elanna's only response was to glare at Seven.

"Ladies!"Chakotay shouted.

"Thank you, Commander," Janeway said.

"What is your decision, Captain?" Ensign Harry Kim asked.

"We will change course. I'd rather not go charging into a nebula that's filled with radiation without knowing if we could come out the other side," Janeway said.

"Agreed," Chakotay said.

B'Elanna left the Observation Lounge in a huff.

"Lieutenant!"Janeway called out.

"I'll go after her," Chakotay said.

"Do so, Commander," Janeway said. After Chakotay followed the engineer she turned to Paris. "Lay in the course, Lieutenant, confer with Seven about the most efficient route."

"Yes, Captain," Paris said.

_~11~_

Chakotay met Torres on the rear corridor of Deck 1. "What was it with you in there, Lieutenant?" he asked.

"It's just that lately things have gone _really _badly at home, and now we're taking extra time to get there!"

"I see, but that does not give you permission to blow up in a staff meeting," Chakotay said.

"I gave you my answer, Chakotay," B'Elanna said. She then went to the gangway down to Deck 2.

"Not a very satisfactory answer," Chakotay said.

"That's all you're getting," B'Elanna said.

Chakotay shook his head as he headed back to the Bridge.

_~12~_

"That's the coordinates for the nearest edge of the visual image of the nebula, Lieutenant," Seven said. She transferred the information from her PADD to the Helm."

"Got it, Seven. I'm laying in the course," Paris said.

"Engage, Mr. Paris," Janeway said.

Paris pressed the 'engage' button. "We're on our way," he said.

"Excellent, Mr. Paris."

_~13~_

Katelyn, Daniel and Kathleen entered the Mess Hall for Dinner. "So, we're going around that nebula?" Kate asked.

"We are," Daniel said.

"An extra eight months, on top of the extra nine years..." Kate murmured.

"Still a bit less than the ten years than that push Kes gave you took off," Kathleen said.

"Good point," Kate said,brightened."How did you know about that?"

"Neelix told me yesterday. I was curious when he said that _Voyager_ had 'leapt' over Borg Space," Kathleen said.

"That's one way to find out," Kate said. They then went to the counter.


End file.
